Bibliotheca Somnia
by Fridoline
Summary: Akihiko is late to a meet-up with Haruki but when he finally arrives, Haruki isn't there.


Akihiko rushed over the campus to the appointed meeting place, the library, where Haruki was waiting for him. He was running late because of a prolonged discussion with his professor after class. Akihiko had texted his boyfriend an apology as soon as he had been able to leave and told him that he was hurrying over immediately.

There was no reply. Akihiko grimaced. It could mean that there was a high probability that he was going to get chewed out by Haruki upon his arrival.

Great.

They were both really busy and stressed at the moment and did not have a lot of time to spend together. Even band practice was suffering from their busy schedules and could only be held once a week currently.

It wasn't ideal, but what could you do?

Akihiko knew that Haruki would forgive him immediately. Haruki's anger was more like pouting. He would complain a little, then sigh, and brush the matter aside. Unless you really pissed him off, which took a whole different level of fucking up, since Haruki usually had Buddhist levels of patience.

Akihiko still felt bad about being almost half an hour late. The faculty of music just had to be the farthest from the library.

A little out of breath, Akihiko arrived in front of the library and looked around. There was no Haruki to be spotted. Maybe he was just getting something to drink from a vending machine or the campus café.

Akihiko shot Haruki another quick message to let him know that he was now standing at the entrance. After a few more minutes of radio silence, he tried to call him but was directed to voicemail after a few rings.

Now, that was uncharacteristic for Haruki. Akihiko opened up their chat history and scrolled back up to read over their arrangements again in case he had missed anything. Haruki's last class had ended earlier than Akihiko's and since he still had some research to do for a couple of his projects, he had proposed to meet at the library.

He was probably inside then. It was still weird, that he wouldn't at least reply to his texts but Akihiko shrugged it off for the moment and decided to look for Haruki inside.

Once he entered the building, Akihiko made a quick detour to the library lockers to stow away his violin case and bag. Akihiko left the reception room, passed by the information center, and walked up the stairs to the second floor, where he knew most of the books related to movies and media and whatever else was relevant for Haruki's studies were located.

Going through the thick glass doors on the second floor, Akihiko entered the realm of absolute silence and sidled through the bookshelves to look for a table with a familiar figure seated at it.

He found Haruki at one of the bigger tables at the wall, along a row of windows. There was a stack of books all around him on the table, some piled upon each other, a few flipped open to pages with the needed information. In front of the slumped body, which was also slightly tilted to the right, stood Haruki's laptop, showing an aquatic scenery on its screen. Judging by the screensaver, Haruki hadn't touched the laptop in at least 15 minutes. And when Akihiko looked at that unnatural posture, he understood why.

He walked over to his sleeping boyfriend on silent feet, grabbed a chair and pulled it to sit across from Haruki. As soon as he saw that silly face, a grin spread across his own. Haruki's head was propped up by his right arm, his right cheek squished up by the palm of his hand, and the weight of his whole upper body was leaning on the arm, pushing it outwards.

Haruki's reading glasses sat askew on his nose and, together with his slightly parted lips, gave him a dorky, but admittedly also very cute, look.

His left hand was lying on some book, one of the pages still stuck loosely between his lax fingers. It looked as if he had fallen asleep while turning the page.

Akihiko almost snorted at that thought. He pulled out his smartphone, instantly put it on silent, since he had forgotten about that, and sneakily took a picture of Haruki. If it weren't so damn adorable, he would have no scruple to post it on their social media account. It would be the perfect retaliation for that last embarrassing picture of Akihiko that Haruki had taken and posted.

But something about the new photo made Akihiko want to keep it private. He could still use it as leverage to 'blackmail' Haruki. It was always good to keep a trump up your sleeves.

Akihiko put his phone back into his jeans pocket and kept watching Haruki for a moment. Part of him wanted to wake up the sleeping beauty and tease him about napping through their appointment, but a bigger part just wanted to let him catch some sleep, since he knew that Haruki's nights were short these days and he was constantly sleep-deprived.

Akihiko had college classes and an upcoming violin concert that kept him busy with a ton of violin practice each day but Haruki was piling up work and projects like crazy. Be it his job, college, his support gig in a different band, Given and all the PR and networking stuff. If there was work to do, Haruki would find and do it.

Akihiko really wondered how he managed to balance it all and not go crazy under all that stress, but that was one of Haruki's strengths, even if it came at the expense of his own wellbeing.

The way the frame of the glasses was pressed into Haruki's face did not look comfortable and the fragile spectacles probably shouldn't be bent like that for too long, so Akihiko reached over the table to gently and slowly pull them off and set them aside.

Haruki's whole posture didn't look too good for his back but there was nothing Akihiko could do without waking him up. He sighed. The college library wasn't the best place to get some sleep, not the worst for sure (undeniably, a popular one with all the overly tired students), but really not the best either.

As much as he would love to let Haruki doze, Akihiko had no choice but to wake him up.

"Hey, princess," he whispered, as he gently carded the fingers of his right hand through Haruki's hair, loosening the shorter strands from their place behind an ear. He brushed the back of those fingers over Haruki's cheek, pushing those loosened locks, fallen into his face, back to tuck them behind that ear again. Akihiko could do this all day long but Haruki immediately stirred to wakefulness, his eyes fluttering open and recognition setting in them.

"Akihiko?" he mumbled, still sleep-confused. He blinked a few times as if to fan away the tiredness, then straightened up and stretched, eliciting a couple of cracking sounds from his spine.

After a wide and long yawn, Haruki seemed to be back amongst the conscious. Aware enough of his surroundings to switch to whispering, as he asked, "What are you doing here?"

Akihiko leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, and grinned, answering in a low voice.

"Well, I had this date planned with a hot blond but I was stood up by him, so…"

Haruki was such an emotive guy, watching his reactions never got boring. His expression morphed from confused to shocked to flustered and to apologetic in what felt like under a second. He frantically checked the time and hissed as if the watch had burned him.

"I'm so sorry! I was working on my paper and must have nodded off at some point…"

Trying to have a normal conversation in whispers only was a bit ridiculous and Haruki looked genuinely guilty, so Akihiko tried to cut this short, since it really wasn't such a big deal anyways.

"Don't worry, I was late anyways. And it wasn't hard to find you. Wanna pack up and grab something to bite on the way home? I'm starving."

Admitting that he had been running late was a sure way to ease Haruki's guilty conscience. And it wasn't as if he could keep it a secret for too long, since he had left a chain of evidence in the form of his chat messages to Haruki.

Haruki was all for buying some take-out to eat at home. He hadn't eaten in a while either.

Quickly and expertly, Haruki packed up his stuff, returned the books he didn't need to their proper places in their shelves, and checked out a couple he needed to work with still. They grabbed their bags from the lockers and made their way over to the parking lot.

"So, since you weren't purposely stood up, is the date back on?" There was a playful tone to Haruki's inquiry.

"You bet!" Akihiko laughed, then added brashly, "Netflix and chill?"

Haruki's cheeks got a nice pinkish tint and he bumped his shoulder against Akihiko's in soft scolding, since he did not have a hand free to slap his boyfriend's upper arm as he usually did in such situations.

"Mhmm, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach," Haruki hedged, avoiding a straight answer.

"Alright, then food's on me. What are you in the mood for?"

"Meat," Haruki kept his eyes fixed on the pavement in front of his feet but the smile tugging at the corner of his lips and the blush that spread to the tips of his ears clearly gave away that he might not just be talking about food.

It was easy and fun to tease Haruki, especially when he joined in on the ambiguous phrasing, if wittingly or unwittingly.

"Alright, Gyūdon it is then. I know just the place."

Akihiko had a feeling that tonight he would be the one to keep Haruki from sleeping. Good thing, he had that power nap in the library before.


End file.
